The Super VMW CPU Meter

Background

This is a project I've been occasionally working on since 1998.
I have had a simple 8-LED CPU meter for years.
Since my time as an undergrad I've been planning a fancier,
alphanumeric replacement. Thirteen years later, after a few abandoned
attempts, I finally have a finished version.

Featured examples

Clock -- shows time, day of week, and 32-bit UNIX time (latter in
binary). Also occasionally shows day/month/year.

Music Visualizer -- shows left/right VU bargraphs, as well
as text of what song is playing.

Scrolling Text -- list arbitrary text files to the display.

Enemy Attack -- demo for using the meter as an auxiliary
display for a video game.

Movie of Meter in Action

Original Meter Running Demos:

Prototype USB Meter Running Space Battle Simulator:

Construction Pictures

Prototype USB version, with the USB circuitry on a perf board
where the parallel port usually would be (again, apologies
for fuzziness):

Proof of concept of USB support, showing "HI". An attiny
on the breadboard is acting as the usb->i2c bridge:

Finished parallel-port meter running CPU-meter software with linux-kernel
"make -j1". It's a dual core
machine, so total CPU is 50% with one CPU maxed out and one idle.

Finished meter running clock software. Day of the week is indicated
by color LEDs (it's Sunday so none lit). 32-bit UNIX time is shown
around the edge via bargraphs. Occasionally day/month/year is shown
on display. Both red/green and green/red display options shown.